Training doesn’t always stick. When that happens, it’s frustrating to think about the time and money spent on launching and implementing the new training programme only to see it fail and staff behaviours remain unchanged.
How can you inspire and engage, and get you and your business results? We’ve got some suggestions to help you waste less of your precious time and prevent training from becoming a bore.
Lead from the top down
(psst... we’re talking about your talented managers!)
We believe that the number one thing that will get your team to really engage with a training programme, is having it lead with enthusiasm from the top down.
It’s important to have executives and managers “buy-in” from the beginning of any programme launch. Once you have their buy-in, the job gets much easier when getting the wider team onboard.
If you spend budget on a training programme and LMS, you need to take the time to ensure it’s implemented and integrated into the business effectively. Your managers play a large part in that.
Get your managers charged up, and genuinely excited about what this training program can do for them and their teams. You need to remind them of what's in it for them.
How we do this at RedSeed? We launch and implement the programme within business - so you don't have to. We meet with management staff to explain the system, how to coach staff, our LMS and document library and ultimately, what them and their team will get out of the training. From there, we continue to support these managers and the wider teams throughout the programme to ensure the training programme is as effective as possible. Results and engagement are everything.
Lose the PowerPoint presentations.
Don’t use PowerPoint presentations to try and educate your teams. We repeat: Do not use PowerPoint presentations. If you want your team to tune out from your training content immediately, then go ahead and use PowerPoint slides and embarrassing slide transitions.
If you want your training to fly, it has to be engaging. Make sure to include some static content, but keep the core content in audio or visual form with activities and quizzes built throughout.
How we do this at RedSeed? We ensure that all training content is built into bite-sized modules - no longer than 30 minutes each. While heavily video-based, we also include static content, long answers questions, and activities along the way to reinforce the learnings and keep trainees engaged.
Involve your trainees.
Ask your trainees to share their particular experiences with your particular training topic. There is so much valuable information your experienced trainees can contribute. This also means trainees will get more out of sessions when they hear and learn from their co-workers’ experiences on the subject— not just an example shown during a presentation. This keeps your learning sessions varied and interesting.
Make sure to allocate some social sharing time into each module and remind trainees to come ready to contribute.
How we do this at RedSeed? We have something no other LMS or training content companies have. The Coaching Loop. RedSeed is about changing behaviour and this is greatly improved by our lead-led coaching system that encourages discussion and feedback - building trainees confidence. This ensures long-term behaviour changes and it gets results!
Meet them halfway.
There are only 24 hours in a day and 8 of those are spent at work frantically powering through emails, reports, presentations, and whatnot.
A lot of the time, no one has leftover brain space during the workday to focus on training. But they might during their morning commute? Or while waiting at the dentist's office.
Meet them halfway and let them work through virtual, self-directed and on the job training - along with activities - in their own time, in whichever location, on any device. So long as you set a deadline for training to be completed, give them the freedom to work through their training when it works for them.
If you force trainees into the standard PowerPoint and paper-based corporate development pathways, don’t be too be surprised when it doesn’t achieve what you expected it to.
How we do this at RedSeed? Any training content can be accessed at any time, on any device. Whether you're viewing on computer, tablet or phone - trainees can access the LMS and training content.
This is especially important for retail sales training, as most sales associates won't have time to train in their work day. It's important to consider when they might be able to train and how you could compensate them for their time.
Keep it simple
Keep your training simple and short. Don’t blast your employees with a day-long intensive workshop. Split the learning into several bite-sized digestible modules, completed over a few months, to encourage stickability.
It's generally accepted that short module learning is more effective than a single full day-long workshop.
Keeping it simple is one of RedSeed's key values. We believe training should be uncluttered, easy-to-use, simple and user-friendly. Most of our courses take no longer than an hour to complete, and we encourage our learners to complete them a few lessons at a time. Our LMS is designed to be as easy as possible to use, with all the power hidden under the hood.
